Impact of High Switching Speed and High Switching Frequency of Wide-Bandgap Motor Drives on Electric Machines

The emergence of fast-switching wide-bandgap (GaN, SiC) power electronics devices has enabled motor drive systems to achieve high efficiency, power density, control bandwidth and high-level of integration. However, the fast-switching speed and high switching frequency result in an increased level of motor overvoltage at both motor terminals and stator neutral. This overvoltage increases the stress across the motor winding insulation and bearings. This paper investigates three types of motor overvoltages, i.e., differential mode (DM) (phase-to-phase) motor terminal overvoltage, common mode (CM) (phase-to-ground) motor terminal overvoltage and CM stator neutral overvoltage (motor neutral to ground). Both the high switching speed (high dv/dt) effect and the high switching frequency effect on the motor overvoltage are investigated in this paper, where the high switching frequency effect has not been fully addressed in existing literature. Significant overvoltage is observed when the switching frequency or its multiples coincide with the cable or motor anti-resonant frequency. The anti-resonant behavior in the cable and motor impedance has been used to identify the overvoltage oscillation frequency and to explain the overvoltage observations for the three types of motor overvoltages. The analysis has been tested using a 7.5kW motor setup with and without a four-core cable, driven by a SiC or a GaN three-phase inverter with a switching frequency up to 250kHz and switching speed up to 40kV/ μs. In addition, the motor bearing current, which is a main cause of bearing degradation, has also been tested and the increase of bearing current is observed due to the high frequency effect.